The Boat Man: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1)

by Dustin Stevens

  The second search was for the study of rare coins, bringing up half as many responses, many of them as scattered as the previous inquiry. Once more he clicked on a single link, hoping something would jump out at him before retreating back out.

  Staring at the blinking cursor inside the search engine box, Reed took a deep breath. He sat with his elbows resting on the desk, body hunched forward, his fingers drumming the wood.

  It was fast apparent there was no way he could educate himself on everything he needed to know about rare coins in the span of a few minutes at the computer. His first couple of stabs had proven he was clueless on the topic, barely able to formulate proper queries, let alone decipher usable information.

  The third entry he attempted was for “Someone Who Studies Coins,” the first response coming back as an entry from an online dictionary with the listing for numismatist.

  “What the hell is a numismatist?” Reed whispered, clicking on the hyperlink.

  Numismatist. A person that collects or studies coins, medals, tokens, or paper currency.

  “Nice,” Reed said aloud, backing out a final time to enter “Numismatic Columbus Ohio.”

  His hope was for a professor at one of the universities in the greater Columbus area, perhaps a national expert that happened to reside nearby. In a crunch he could speak to someone over the phone, but his hope was to take the coins by and have someone examine them, giving him a better heading on what they meant and how he could use them to track the killer.

  What he found was a close second.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A wooden sign was affixed to the front fence running along the building, a solid metal affair with two bars stretched parallel to the ground. Four silver bolts were visible in each corner of the sign, fastening it to the bars. Made of a dark-shaded wood, the sign gleamed under the midday sun, deep-set letters welcoming visitors to the Greater Columbus Numismatic Association.

  While hoping for a college professor of some sort, Reed had reasoned that the field was extremely narrow, the likelihood of any local universities having a specialist on staff being quite low. If he knew anything at all about the coins or the images found on them he might have been able to narrow his search and find a subject matter expert to help, but as it were his needs were too broad.

  And it’s not like he had the time or the patience to spend dealing with the traffic and congestion of making his way onto a campus.

  Instead he had settled on the member association for the central Ohio region, speaking with a man that practically jumped at the opportunity to meet with him. Together they had set an appointment for early afternoon, giving Reed time to swing by the coroner’s office and grab the second coin.

  A quick look through the evidence locker revealed a similar object tucked away in a mass of coins pulled by the criminologists at the Mentor scene, the misshapen disk recognizable at a glance beside basic nickels and pennies.

  All three were on the passenger seat beside him as he pulled into the small lot on the side of the building and parked in the closest stall. Only one other car sat in the available spaces outside, presumably from the man he had spoken to a few hours earlier.

  “Stay,” Reed said, taking up a note pad and the coins from the seat beside him, a low whine rolling from Billie as he climbed out. It grew louder as he walked away from the car, not once looking back.

  The building was small and squat, made entirely of dark red brick with black shutters and black handrails leading along the walk towards the door. A sign matching the one out front hung by the door announcing the shop hours, just four hours a day, three days a week.

  A bell rang overhead as Reed stepped inside, the smell of pungent cleaning solution hitting him full in the face. Bright lights beamed down from the ceiling spotlighting a room lined with glass cases. Atop each of them sat desk lamps and magnifying glasses, the entire space void of human life.

  “Hello, there!” a voice called from the back, its owner appearing a moment later through the doorway on the opposite side of the room. “You must be the detective, come on back.”

  Reed passed through the room into a second one of equal size, the lights reduced to normal halogens, the cases replaced with bookshelves, the combined effect making the room seem much darker than the one before it.

  “Reed Mattox,” Reed said, thrusting his hand out as he stepped through, his foot sinking into a thick woven rug on the floor.

  “Jim Shatley,” the man replied, returning the shake, his hand weathered and dry to the touch.

  On first impression, Reed guessed Shatley to be in his mid-sixties, the shop most likely a retirement hobby venture. He was dressed in jeans, a turtleneck, and a tweed jacket, a grey beard matching the hair on his head.

  Combined with the handshake Reed would have ventured him a former physician of some sort.

  “Thank you for meeting with me on short notice,” Reed said. “I know it was an unusual request to make this morning.”

  “Bah!” Shatley said, waving a hand for effect. “You saw the sign on the way in. I would have been here anyway this afternoon. Talking to you for a while gives me a nice break from going through the new recruits.”

  Reed glanced around the room once, seeing nobody.

  “New recruits are what we call coins left to us when a member passes on,” Shatley said, offering the expected amount of solemnity in his face and tone. “Often times the family has no real interest in them, and they know we’ll take good care of them, find them a proper home.”

  It was a curious choice of words, the explanation sounding more the way someone would discuss a pet than a coin collection.

  Still, Reed let it pass without comment. He was there to obtain information, something that would become much more difficult if he offended his host.

  “Ah,” Reed said, nodding as if he understood. “So, you run the association here in Columbus?”

  “That’s right,” Shatley said, nodding. “Been in charge here since retiring four years ago. There’s not a whole lot to it, but it gets me out of the house some, keeps the wife from getting sick of me.”

  The last sentence was offered with a grin, an aging man’s attempt at levity. Reed humored him with a matching smile, nodding as if he knew exactly what Shatley was referring to.

  “So, Mr. Shatley, I apologize in advance if I seem abrupt, but as I mentioned before we are working under the clock on this. I’m sure you saw on the news last night what happened over at Midwestern Paper.”

  The lead-in was meant to protect them both, giving Reed an excuse for avoiding any idle chatter and allowing Shatley not to be offended by it.

  “I understand,” Shatley said, “and it’s actually Doctor, but please call me Jim.”

  Reed twisted his head just a bit to hide the half smile curling up on the left side of his face, his original supposition confirmed.

  “Okay, Jim,” Reed said, his face falling flat, pushing right ahead. He reached into the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt and extracted the evidence bags, extending them towards Shatley. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me what these are.”

  Shatley reached into the inside pocket of his jacket before accepting them, removing a pair of reading glasses and placing them on the tip of his nose. He took the bags from Reed and held them in either hand, lifting them up to the light and glancing at each in turn.

  “Oh, my,” he said, a bit of reverence in his voice, the tone no louder than a whisper. “Oh, my.”

  A long moment passed as Reed waited, allowing the man to continue looking, an expression of awe on his face.

  “You’ve seen these coins before?” Reed asked, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  Another moment of silence passed before Shatley pulled them down from the light, resting them on either thigh. “Detective, these aren’t coins at all. They’re obols.”

  Confusion passed over Reed’s features as he tried to place the word. It rang vaguely familiar in the back of his mind
though he couldn’t place exactly why or from where.

  “Obols?” he asked, drawing a smile from the man across from him.

  “Please,” Shatley said, standing and leading him into the adjacent room, placing each of the bags on the closest counter. He pulled a desk lamp across the glass and turned it on, a bright white hue hitting the objects flush.

  With his opposite hand he drug the closest magnifying glass over, positioning it so both men could see the enlarged detail on the items before them.

  “Obols are a coin of sorts,” Shatley began, his demeanor taking on the tenor of a teacher at work. “They come from ancient Greece and Sparta and were used as currency thousands of years ago.”

  The look of confusion grew on Reed’s face as Shatley extracted a pen from the same pocket as his glasses, using the end of it as a pointer.

  “See how they are of a non-uniform measure? That’s because in those time they were made individually, not like the presses we have today. Every single obol ever created was unique, the same generally, but just different enough to stand apart.”

  Reed nodded along with the explanation, not at all sure how it related to his work, but content to let Shatley keep going until something came out he could use.

  “These in particular came from Greece, part of a matching set depicting King Demetrius. I’d guess them to be from somewhere around 180 BC, right towards the end of his reign.”

  “What makes you say that?” Reed asked, leaning forward onto his toes to better view the obols.

  Shatley arranged two of them so a different side of each coin was showing, the third left off to the side. Starting on the right he said, “See here how the head of Demetrius looks to have an elephant atop it, with tusks and trunk extended? This was late in his time as ruler, after he had brought Buddhism into the land.”

  He moved to the opposite edge and said, “On this side is a caduceus, the sign of reconciliation between two fighting serpents, meant to portray the peace achieved between the Greeks and Sungas.”

  Once more Reed nodded as if the information was directly pertinent to his case, casting his gaze upon the obols. As objects alone they were quite exquisite, small in size but detailed to a great degree. Given that they had been constructed thousands of years before, they were a testament both to design and craftsmanship.

  Still, they did nothing to help his case.

  “But I’m guessing this little history lesson isn’t why you’re here,” Shatley said matter-of-factly, pushing back from the magnifying glass and disappearing into the other room.

  Reed wasn’t sure how to respond to the statement so he said nothing, waiting, listening as the floor in the opposite half of the building echoed with movement.

  A moment later Shatley reappeared beside him, an oversized leather volume in hand. He slid the evidence bags to the side and lowered the book in their place, the light and magnifying glass both positioned above it.

  “Let me guess,” Shatley said, looking up from the book and turning to face Reed. “You found these inside someone’s mouth, didn’t you?”

  There was no stopping Reed’s jaw as it fell, a tremor of excitement passing through him. “How did you...?”

  A knowing smile curled the corners of Shatley’s mouth as he returned his attention back to the book before him. On the page open in front of them was a depiction of a painting, the image stretching across the entirety of two pages.

  Reed forced his features back to neutral as he bent forward and took in the picture, the magnifying glass expanding most of the middle of it. The part it encompassed looked like a scene from a riverbank, people piling from the shore onto a ferry. At the back end of the makeshift raft was a muscled man with a pole, herding them forward.

  “Have you ever heard of Charon?” Shatley asked without looking over.

  “Karen?” Reed asked, his eyebrows coming together as he tried to place the name.

  “No, Detective,” Shatley corrected, “not Karen the woman’s name, Charon the ancient Greek deity.”

  Even using the new frame of reference Reed drew a blank, trying in vain to grasp where the information was going.

  “Greek mythology believed that the river Acheron separated the world of the living from the world of the dead. In order for those souls to get across, they had to pay a toll to Charon, the boat man that ferried them there.

  “Ancient burial practices dictated that proper fare, the obol, was placed into the mouth of the deceased to ensure they made it across.”

  For the first time, bits of what Reed knew began to line up. It still did nothing just yet to help him track the killer, but it gave a key piece of insight into the motivation behind the crimes. From there, he might be able to work backwards to where he needed to be.

  “And if they didn’t?” Reed asked.

  “Legend dictated that the souls must wander the shores of Acheron for one hundred years, their own form of purgatory, before being granted a ride across.”

  Images from movies such as Boondock Saints and Troy came to Reed’s mind as he processed the information. The practice wasn’t common in modern society, but it wasn’t completely without precedent either.

  “Tell me,” Reed asked, “in your opinion, why would somebody be placing these in the mouth of their victims?”

  It was generally bad form to divulge more to someone not affiliated with law enforcement than necessary, though after three bodies in as many nights, Reed wasn’t entirely concerned with protocol. He now had a subject matter expert in front of him, free of any outside pressures, and wanted an unbiased opinion before leaving.

  Shatley stood back a moment, crossing his arms over his chest. He curled his right hand to his chin and rested it there, his lips pursed in thought.

  “As a numismatic, I can’t think of a one,” Shatley said. “What you’re looking at there are some of the most sought after goods from antiquity.”

  He paused there, long enough that Reed got the hint that he would like first crack at them if they ever became available.

  “After that? My guess would be whoever did this wanted to make sure his victims made their way straight to Hell the moment he was done with them.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The final declaration from Shatley reverberated through Reed’s mind as he reversed course and headed back towards the coroner’s office. It bounced from one side to the next, fitting with one mental image after another, each twisting his stomach a little tighter.

  Since seeing the first crime scene, Reed had been certain that the killer was out for some sort of vengeance. The crimes were too well planned, too graphic in nature, for there not to be a personal angle to them.

  Hearing that the end goal though was to ensure the victims ended up on the right side of the river, residents of Hell itself, made things much worse though. It told him the end was the ultimate goal and while thus far the means had been limited to only the targets, there was nothing to say that that wouldn’t change if necessary.

  Reed was looking at a vendetta killer, and in his limited experience with them he had found that never did they just stop. They had to be stopped.

  The parking lot of the coroner’s office was half full as Reed pulled into it, remaining in the back row and letting Billie out for a few minutes. Once she was done and resumed her place in the backseat he headed inside, fast becoming a familiar face, needing only to toss a wave to the girl working the front desk before passing into the elevator.

  Halfway down the basement hall a flash of white caught his attention, a sheet of paper affixed to the door of Solomon’s office, a single thumbtack holding it in place. It hung flat against the closed door, no light extending out from beneath the jamb.

  Detective Reed – Please meet me in the lab.

  There was no closing to the note, just the single line. Reed left it in place and made his way to the end of the hall, hanging a left before pushing his way through the metal double doors that demarcated the lab.

  The faint smell of
formaldehyde touched Reed’s nose as he stepped in, the ambient temperature dropping fifteen degrees compared to the hall outside. The sound of classical music was in the air, low, coming from a speaker system in the corner of the room.

  “Afternoon, Detective,” Solomon said from her post, smack in the center of the space. She wore a full examination gown and apron as she looked up at him, a plastic shield pulled down over her face. Bits of bone dust and blood spatter dotted her outfit, strewn across in a haphazard pattern.

  Beside her was an older woman, her entire torso splayed open in the standard Y-cut, the flaps pulled back. Most of her internal organs had been removed, her rib cage resembling an empty cavern.

  “Afternoon, Doctor,” Reed replied, stopping a few feet away from the macabre scene, his hands thrust into his pockets. “Thank you for giving me the heads up this morning about the obol. It helped.”

  An eyebrow arched behind the mask as Solomon looked up at him. “Obol?”

  “Sorry,” Reed said, his mouth turning up in a half smile. “That’s what the guy I met with this afternoon kept calling it, kind of stuck.”

  “Ahh,” Solomon said, nodding as if in acceptance of his explanation. “By obol I’m guessing you mean fare for the ferry man?”

  A spark of surprise passed through Reed as his eyebrows rose higher. Until a few hours ago he had never heard the word obol, had no idea that they were placed inside of mouths.

  Now, the last two people he had spoken with seemed to be experts in ancient Greek rituals.

  “Very same,” Reed confirmed. “Seems whoever is doing this wants to be sure these guys stay gone.”

  On the opposite side of the stainless steel examination table, Solomon flipped off her headlamp, the loss of luminosity doing little beside the enormous spotlight aimed down from the ceiling. She peeled the lamp from her head and laid it on the utensil tray beside her, removing the mask and doing the same.